In the Undusted Corners of My Mind
by Aerwiya
Summary: Alice in Wonderland is about crazy people doing crazy things in a crazy place. Well, these are MY crazy people doing crazy things in a crazy place. Enter if you dare...
1. In the Undusted

**A/N: WARNING- do not expect a straightforward plot or anything... there wasn't much of one in Alice in Wonderland either. Essentially this is me typing my randomest, deepest, strangest, most bizarre thoughts that I would never dare write anywhere else other than in a fanfic based on that random, deep, strange, bizarre book called ****Alice in Wonderland****(which I do not own just in case you thought I did). This is my version of the crazy tale about crazy people in a crazy place. Now the only thing for you to do is: To read or not to read, that is the question. Which is nobler in the mind is for you to decide. *bribes with cookies* (on a sidenote... if you laugh or even crack a smile while reading this, I'd appreciate a review telling me that you did laugh at one of my attempts at being witty... they are more on the subtle side... over and out)**

I looked up and was surprised to see the shining, arched ceiling above me. Its glass surface was etched with designs I couldn't make out from so far below it. _Where the heck am I?!_ was the first thing I wondered. The last thing I remembered was sitting drowsily at my desk in American Studies class while a dull documentary about blah and blah blah and how they blah blah blahed all over blah blah and changed blah forever. BLAH! It had been terribly borining… So where was I now?

I looked around at the room I was in. It looked like a stained-glass artist had tried to discover how many colors of glass really existed (the number is 148,589,585.40693 for your information) and built a room with them. The walls glittered with splashes of scintillating glass; they were odd, but nonetheless pleasing to the eyes. I felt dwarfed in the _very_ large room. It was also uncomfortably empty.

The floor was covered with a blanket of dust that had probably been there long enough to outlast even a Twinkie. I brushed away some of it and was surprised to see—myself. Continuing my efforts at clearing a space of floor, I discovered the entire floor was a mirror. In my mind's eye I imagined the entire floor free of dust, reflecting the brilliance of the ceiling on its vast, smooth surface. Having no other occupation, I set to work.

Now reader, I will not bother you extensively with the details of pushing away the half foot layer of dust and grime, but I would have you know the results. I discovered a queer sort of magnifying device. It was bolted in place to the ground and after removing the dust from beneath it, I felt compelled to look through it. From this I made a discovery. The magnifying device did indeed distort my reflection and my nose looked the size of a pizza, but more important was what I saw when looking at it from an angle so my head wasn't directly above it. I could see the inscriptions on the ceiling.

They read:

_Il jenous frentela quipo_

_Pandu radau semplue_

_Chrey vent _

Little did I know that in Diandolese this obviously meant:

_Sky Purple Is Slipping Ponder_

_Flounder Needs Strutting My_

_Dust West Little Newt_

However, this was not meant to be read in Diandolese. It was meant to be read in Gibberish, of which I suddenly found myself quite fluent.

Translated it _really_ said:

_When you feel the need to depart_

_What you seek lies straight ahead_

_But do not forget the life of art_

_Or what you see here will fall dead_

(Do not trouble yourself with the fact that there are four lines in the translation and only three in the original thing. It is of little importance.)

_Straight ahead_, I thought as I looked up. Ah yes, cleverly disguised amongst the statements of color was a door. A vibrant streak of red sprayed across it and glimmered gently. I rose, dusting off the filth that clung to my jeans and shirt. With purpose, I strode towards the door. I had to get back to class!

I'd have never guessed how long of a journey this beginning would give rise to, or how much more it would teach me than any class the school district could provide me with. Ignorantly, I sealed my fate into place with the light _click_ of the door knob as I turned it.


	2. Soft Voices Lure: Gathering

**A/N: This is pretty much going to be a bunch or randomly sewn together scenes. Hopefully they'll turn into a lovely patchwork of writing, but knowing my sewing skills in real life… :) Enjoy!**

The handle turned smoothly beneath my fingers and I stepped out of the stained glass room only to find myself in darkness. I heard a _click_ behind me as the door closed and my stomach sunk as I tried to reopen it. It was locked.

And so I found myself standing in the dark with who knows what else was there, not sure of where I was, and starting to become hungry. Perfect. Several choice angry words came to my mind as this dawned on me. Hesitantly, I reached my hand forward, not knowing what it would find. Just air. I took a step forward and found myself flat on my face seconds later.

_Ouch_. To my irritation I'd made the pleasant discovery of finding a rock that I wouldn't have fallen over if I'd taken a step in any other direction. I'd landed funny on my ankle too and the right knee of my jeans had torn. _It just needs to rain now,_ I though sarcastically. To be perfectly honest I half expected it to.

After a moment of contemplation, I decided not to haul myself to my feet and instead continued on my knees. The ground felt smooth beneath my fingers and… clean. While trying to figure out what to make of that, all my forward crawling halted when voices found their way to my ear. Their words were indistinct, but I made out the sounds of harsh laughter among them. Wildly I glanced around, trying to see where the noise was coming from. I saw no light. I saw no dim outlines. I only heard the voices. Presently, the question of my sanity became to most pressing thing in my mind, but I refused to seriously consider that.

_Kallie,_ I told myself firmly, _there is nothing wrong with you. All you need to do is find the people talking and ask them how to get out of here._ After a moment I added, _And where I can get something to eat._

Having a clear goal made it easier to continue and maintain a regular breathing pattern. Out of the blue I heard a bellow of, "No cheesecake! No!"

"Hello?" I shouted. If I could understand them yelling, they should be able to hear me.

Silence was my only response. Not even the voices greeted my hungry ears.

"Hello?" I repeated.

Footsteps came pattering in my direction. The thought struck me that maybe I _didn't_ want these people to find me, but I could hardly call back my words and running was out of the question; where there was one stupid rock, there was another. Closer and closer came the footsteps. I tried not to breathe too loudly, but my heartbeat began to run the 100 meter sprint and I could hardly control how loud that was.

Someone coughed a few paces from my left and someone to my right let out a sigh of frustration. "Where are you?" a male voice asked.

I deliberated a moment and decided that maybe I _did_ have better chances if I trusted myself to strangers than if I remained unaided in this dreary darkness.

"I don't know," I replied, "where _am _I?"

I heard the pair take a few steps in my direction, but they didn't come uncomfortably close.

"Who are you?" one asked guardedly.

"Kallie," I replied, also hesitant.

"Callie La Vayant?" the one to my right asked hopefully.

"Um, no."

"Cheesecake," muttered the one on the left pointedly to the one on the right.

"Cheesecake?" I asked in confusion.

"Precisely," came the aged voice of the one on the left.

There was a lapse of silence. "Who are you?" I asked, a little bolder.

"Eldred," the one on the left said. After the one on the right gave no response he added, "And this is Jayden."

"So," Eldred asked conversationally, "how'd you end up here?"

"Er, I can't say," I said awkwardly. How are you supposed to explain that when you're not sure yourself?

"Hmm?" said Eldred, as if he hadn't heard be correctly.

"Well, that is… I came from the… stained glass room back there and—"

"What?" Jayden interrupted me.

"Cheesecake," repeated Eldred to Jayden.

"No!" shouted Jayden.

"Right, well," I said, struggling to my feet, "this has been a lovely chat and all, but really I've got to— oof." I'd taken a step forward and fallen into one of them. Perhaps I'd done more to my ankle than land on it funny. To my displeasure, it was the one on the right who ended up catching me. I struggled to right myself, but that didn't go so well.

"Are you hurt?" asked Eldred, concern in his voice.

"My ankle," I replied, holding on to Jayden's shoulder for support.

"Jayden" the elderly man said more seriously, "like it or not, I think the time has come."

Jayden's hand on my elbow stiffened. "There is no need. We still have time. She's probably still in there and—"

"No," said Eldred forcefully, "cheesecake."

Not even Marcus Porcius Cato (the original inventor of cheesecake) could predict what sort of delicious trouble and adventure this one word would take our threesome into. My whole concept of cheesecake was about to be blown into oblivion.


	3. Tactile Light Swarming

**A/N: I would like to dedicate this chapter to: my fried Sarah who took over 15 min. to tell that "A Panda walks into a bar, eats, shoots, and leaves" joke because we all kept interrupting her and telling her about her inability to finish a joke. I'm hoping you're enjoying reading this fanfic at least a fraction of how much I'm enjoying writing this because it'd be a total waste of time to read something you don't enjoy in the slightest :) And so, we shall see what magic and wonders my home slice Kallie will meet up with next in the undusted corners of my mind… Fo sho.**

Jayden's hand was warm on the small of my back as he helped me, somewhat grudgingly, hobble away from the locked door. "Where are we going?" I asked, my arm slung around his shoulders for support. Eldon was the one who answered.

"To get the cheesecake."

"Okay, really, what's up with the cheesecake thing?" I demanded. They would _not_ keep me in the dark any longer, no pun intended.

"It's a long story," Jayden muttered.

"Well, I think I've got a while," I pointed out, realizing that my injured ankle wasn't going to speed us up any.

"Right," Jayden agreed with a sigh, "Eldon, you can tell her."

"Oh no, you're a much better story teller," Eldon said, obviously just wanting to hand the task off to someone else.

"I really don't—" Jayden began.

"Just tell me the story," I interrupted; the pain I felt shooting from my ankle and up my shin was making me irritable.

"Fine." He took a breath and began telling his story into the darkness.

"I guess you could say it started when Eldon, Callie, and I began our search for the perfect window."

I took that in for a moment. "Why were you looking for the perfect window?" I asked, somewhat bewildered.

"My mother was redecorating, another long story," said Eldon, "please continue Jayden."

"Anyways," Jayden continued, "after many fruitless attempts, we heard rumors about a fantastic building made of stained glass. Well, we figured that if we found out who could make and entire mansion out of stained glass, we could probably persuade them to build the perfect window."

"Mansion?" I asked. Though the room had been large, I hardly thought it qualified as a mansion.

"Yes, there are over five hundred other rooms other than the one you went through to get here."

"Wait, this wasn't the only way out?"

"Not in the least," Jayden said, "there had to be at least three other doors you could've gone through."

_Of course_, I thought, _leave it up to me to mess up directions that say 'straight ahead'…_

"Unless," Eldon cut in, "when Callie left, she—"

"She didn't leave!" snapped Jayden.

"Well, actually I did have to leave in order to get—" I began awkwardly, pointing out the obvious can always be a little weird, but I was cut off my Jayden's harsh clarification.

"Not you, Callie La Vayant."

"What does this have to do with cheesecake?" I cut in.

"Well, that was quite a tangent," remarked Eldon.

"Will you quit asking questions and let me tell my story?" Jayden exclaimed.

"Okay," I agreed in a voice that confirmed I was all too conscious that I was the one hindering the tale.

"Anyways," Jayden began once again, "we decided to come to this mansion and inquire after who had built it, but when we got here, it was empty." I thought about the vast, mournful emptiness of the room I'd been in and tried to imagine dozens and dozens more like that. I shivered.

"It was a little spooky," he admitted, "we kept expecting to stumble upon someone or at least something else alive."

"Did you ever get lost when—" I stopped my question before I could finish. _Patience is a virtue_, I told myself.

Jayden went on as if he hadn't heard me, "And then we found it: the perfect window." There was a touch of awe in his voice as he recalled the wondrous sight. "Every other bit of glass in this building is tinted with color, but though those are beautiful, stunning even, this pristine panel of crystal stood leagues above them."

"Cheeseca—"

"He's getting there," whispered Eldon.

"Well, we assumed we could just take it, seeing as the great house was uninhabited. No one would miss it right? Wrong. The moment our fingers left their prints on its perfect surface, we heard something awful. A screaming and screeching like you wouldn't believe. And then, out of nowhere, we were surrounded by twenty or so people. They were all wearing fine clothing, like royalty. One woman walked towards us, her dark hair was pulled up into, I don't even know how to describe it. Everyone there was so elaborately dressed; I couldn't even comprehend all the depth and detail at that moment.

"Anyways, she walked up to us with an expression of such furry and disgust I felt frozen to the spot, even though all I wanted to do was run away. So, to make a long story short, she cursed Eldon and me to stay here (this is pretty much the dungeon by the way) and Callie was commanded to remain and guard this place for one hundred and thirteen days, after which, if she did stay for the whole time, we would all be free to go. However, if she left, she would supposedly doom us to die here. What she wasn't told was that, if this did happen and she left, we could eat a magical cheesecake and be taken out of here, but it would prevent Callie from ever moving out of the area she was in."

Jayden paused a moment, "Maybe now you can see why I'm so hesitant to try the cheesecake. If Callie is still there, she will be stuck there for the rest of her life, but if she isn't… she deserted us."

"Oh," was the only response I could muster. Seeing as I was uneducated as to the proper etiquette during a conversation about the perfect window and magic cheesecake, it seemed best to not say much at all.

"And if what you say is true," Jayden continued, slowing our walk, "it seems she has abandoned us and the only solution is to eat the cheesecake."

"But," I began, "what if she had just… stepped out of the room to get food or something?"

"All services were provided for her, as they were for us. None of our bodies need a thing as long as we're inside the stained glass building. If she wasn't there, she's gone," Eldon stated.

"But she might have—" I fumbled for another excuse. The pain in Jayden's voice was sincere and I felt a sort of sympathy towards him. There was also a slight softness when he mentioned Callie's name that gave hint that maybe it was the betrayal of more than a friend he feared.

"If she wasn't there she's gone," Jayden affirmed.

The two men waited for my answer.

"Er, there was a layer of dust at least half a foot high in there and no sign of anyone," I informed them. We'd come to a stop in the blackness.

I felt Jayden sigh beneath the arm I had around his shoulders. "Well," he said, masking his pain, "Eldon, you'd better get out that cheesecake."

"Yes sir!" the aged voice responded with an enthusiasm I hadn't expected. After being stuck in a dark prison for who knows how long, the old man was ready for a breath of fresh air and the brightness of freedom.

I heard his shuffling steps tread away from Jayden and I for a moment, the scraping sounds of cardboard against cardboard, and a grunt as something heavy was lifted.

"Here we are," Eldon said in a triumphant tone as he walked back towards us and dropped what I assumed was the cheesecake on the ground.

_That was anticlimactic_, I thought. You'd think a choir of angels would be the ones to carry in a _magic_ cheesecake, not some funny old guy who probably couldn't carry a tune if it had handles. Regardless of the presentation, I was filled with wonder at the sight that greeted my eyes as Eldon opened the cheesecake's box.

Liquid-like light poured out from the box, radiated from the item of perfection inside. I'm a failure at describing perfection, dear reader, my apologies, but if Marie Callender could've made a cheesecake like that, my anti-cheesecake friends would've been instantly converted a thousand times over. We all stared in wonder at the masterpiece for a moment before Eldon took his wrinkled hands and carefully handed each of us one of the pre-sliced pieces.

The taste was—can you imagine the taste of a flawless cheesecake? No, of course you can't, you've never had one and, I'm sad to inform you, you likely never will. Again, as I'm a failure at describing perfection, you will have to live a life bereft of any sense of what the crown of the existence of cheesecake was like. Again, my apologies.

With that sweet, creamy, perfectly mixed with a hint of raspberry chocolate that cannot begin to be described, I felt a lightness begin in my toes and rush through me. The last thing I knew before darkness over took my mind was: cheesecake.


	4. Burning Butterflies

**A/N: Yes, you get to read another author's note by me. Don't you feel lucky :) Well, let's just say I came up with the title of this chapter before I wrote it and let it play out how it would. It unfolded rather nicely though and I'm confident you'll find **_**something**_** you find at least remotely interesting. Bon a petit!**

The first thing I noticed, while my mind still lay far behind my eyelids, was that my ankle was painfully hot. _Smack._ The second thing I noticed was that someone hit me. "Hey," I mumbled. I was never one to pull the "five more minutes" thing because I knew that my five minutes was a little closer to five hours and it always seemed to be best to get unpleasantries, like waking up, over and done with. Slowly, I uncurled from my little ball, sat up, and opened my eyes.

_What the…_ I had a strange sensation of déjà vu as it dawned on me that I didn't know where I was. Again. Suddenly, the memory of the stained glass room, Jayden, Eldon, and the cheesecake exploded in my mind. "Jayden? Eldon?" I cried out.

"Hmm?"

I looked around behind me and my eyes were met with a shocking, but not unwelcome, sight. Imagine every ridiculously attractive man from every Jane Austen book out there and give him a perfect jaw line, hair, and eyes and change his age to that of roughly a junior in high school. _That_ is what greeted my eyes, tailcoat and all (though his clothes were rather rumpled and dirty, but that's understandable considering how long it must've been since they could've been cleaned). I blinked a few times.

"What?" he asked, concern clouding his blue eyes.

"Are _you_ Jayden?" I asked. Well, maybe it was a stupid question seeing as I recognized his voice, but I could hardly believe that he was the ill tempered man I'd met in the dungeon of the stained glass building. He had been the person helping me limp around down there.

"Yes," he answered slowly, "I'm pretty sure we've already been introduced though," he said with a smile.

I took this time to stop gawking at him and looked at our surroundings.

It seemed to be that we were in a forest of holly trees. "Where are we?" I asked, hoping that he'd know. I hated this feeling of being lost.

"Holly Forest," he replied, brushing through his dark brown hair with his fingers.

_What a creative name_, I thought dryly as I glanced at the trees again.

"Where's Eldon?" I inquired after noticing his absence.

"Erm, well, your guess is as good as mine. I just came around myself," Jayden admitted as he plucked out dead leaf from his hair.

"Great," I sighed. While looking away from him for a moment, I ascertained that it did not look like it was going to rain. _That's a plus,_ I thought weakly. _Smack._

"What was that for?" I exclaimed.

"The butterflies," Jayden responded.

I felt my eyebrows raise questioningly while my cheeks began to redden in embarrassment. I certainly had felt butterflies in my stomach when I first had glimpsed Jayden, but really it wasn't anything—

_Smack!_

"What?" I yelled in frustration. I felt like I did at the first mention of the cheesecake. What was he talking about?

"The butterflies," he insisted as he pulled something off the back of my shirt where he'd hit me. I turned my body, wincing at the still present pain in my ankle, to get a better look at what he held in his hand.

Indeed it was a butterfly, but I'd never seen one that looked like this. Its wings flashed bright red and gold at us and the edges of the wings almost seemed to glow like dying embers. I reached out my finger to touch the beautiful creature.

"It's still hot," warned Jayden.

"It's still what?"

"The edge of the wings," he said, pointing to them.

I watched curiously as the wings seemed to blacken, and then gray from the outside in. My finger brushed the soft wing and I was startled to feel it crumbled to ash. My puzzled brown gaze met Jayden's studying blue one.

"The burning butterflies of Holly Forest," he said, "see, there's a live one there."

Sure enough, his pointing finger led to a butterfly, its flaming wings dancing daringly in the air. My breath caught in my throat for a moment and we watched as it floated away, its shining red and gold wings blazing with small flames.

Silence settled between us with relative comfort; however, I began to feel restless from sitting and pushed myself off the ground into a standing position. Of course, by this time I'd forgotten about my injured ankle and promptly found myself reminded as I fell to the ground. "Ouch," I muttered between gritted teeth.

"Need help?" Jayden asked, amusement glinting in his eyes, obviously finding my struggle to stand up humorous.

"No thank you," I replied curtly, brushing dirt off my jeans.

Jayden opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by some off-key singing nearby.

"Eldon?" Jayden called out, looking towards the noise.

"And if you could fiddle a nice dandy riddle," an aged, yet strikingly loud voice sang out, "I'd give you: quite nice rice and stones." Through the red speckled trees I saw a short old man walking towards us, dressed similarly to Jayden. His silver streaked hair was in complete disarray, but it suited him. "Ah, Jayden," the old man greeted Jayden heartily, "I've good news. We're by the Coral River."

Jayden's somewhat pleased expression dimmed at once. "Good news? How is that good? The Coral River is miles away from any civilization!"

"It certainly is," Eldon agreed, "but do you know what else is miles from civilization?"

Jayden gave the elderly man a strange look before something clicked in his mind. "Your mother!"

Now, reader, do not mistake this for another stupid "your mom" joke. It certainly would've made a nice and ridiculous one, but, in truth, it was a fact. Eldon's mother lived near the Coral River, miles from civilization.

Jayden stood up and offered me his hand in a gentlemanly manner; I almost contemplated refusing it, but I certainly couldn't walk on my own and Eldon looked like the kind of old man who would frequently complain about his back problems just to get out of doing any sort of task. I grasped his hand, pulled myself up, and we situated ourselves to travel in a manner similar to that in the mansion.

While in the darkness of the dungeon and under the assumption that Jayden was much older than I (he was quite tall), my only scruple about him helping me was that he could potentially be, to say it bluntly, a very creepy man. Now that we were in daylight, my misgivings had more to do with the fact that he was an attractive boy of my age and I hadn't had a chance to reapply deodorant recently. Despite my worries, I didn't smell too rancid and the walk through Holly Forest was soothing, pleasant even. With my arm around Jayden's shoulders for support, I gazed at the lovely holly trees. Their prickly dark green leaves contrasted sharply with their red, glowing berries. A nice effect.

We came across the burning butterflies a few more times, but we managed to avoid them. I still couldn't get over how strange it was to see a butterfly lit up with flames flying by us most calmly.

"Why don't they burn up and die?" I asked as we passed yet another.

"You're an inquisitive one," Jayden remarked, "I don't think I've heard much but questions come from your mouth."

_You'd have a lot of questions too if you'd randomly found yourself thrown into a crazy world with burning butterflies and magic cheesecake so amazing that you can't keep consciousness while eating it, _I thought. I would've said it, but I thought approaching the topic of how I'd gotten into the stained glass room could lead to awkward questions and answers. No, that was a conversation I could do without. I remained silent and waited for my answer about the butterflies.

"I'm not sure exactly," Jayden said as the butterfly landed on a holly tree and scorched its spiny leaves, "my sister was interested in that sort of thing, but I myself never set about studying it."

_Good answer_…

"Do you like corn Miss Kallie?" asked Eldon.

"Well, yes, I guess I do," I answered. It wasn't my favorite food, that would be spaghetti—the most delicious food to ever exist, but it was still very good.

"Good," Eldon said, "because my mother makes a mean corn casserole, cornbread, and corn ice cream every single day of the week."

"I'm sure," I replied, my stomach was speaking to me again so anything, even corn ice cream, sounded good right now.

"I remember when I was a young lad and one day I became quite sick of—" Eldon cut off. A smile spread across his face. "I take it you're new to 'round these parts?"

"Yes," I replied hesitantly.

"Well then, we can't have you seeing the Coral River for the first time without proper introduction."

"What do you mean?"

One of Jayden's hands came up and covered my eyes. I halted.

"Keep walking," he urged, suppressing a laugh.

"Believe me, this mighty fine river is not something you want spoiled by a first glimpse from far away," Eldon explained.

I continued walking, all too conscious of the warm hand over my eyes. _Coral River here I come_, I though halfheartedly, though in truth I was bursting with curiosity about what could make this river so special… other than it being miles from civilization (like your mom).


End file.
